Hector Tobars The Tattooed Soldier Essay -- The Tattooed Soldier Essa

Downtown Los Angeles is one of the busiest commercial centers in the United States. However, the city holds two groups of people in different economic level-the homeless and the working class. Hector Tobar frequently includes the landscape of the setting in downtown Los Angeles in The Tattooed Soldier. The novel is active two immigrants from Guatemala who stomach moved to Los Angeles. The protagonist, Antonio, takes a revenge on the antagonist, Longoria because he murdered Antonios wife and son when he was a Guatemalan soldier. Tobar applies a number of metaphors to connect the buildings and freeways in downtown to Antonios position in the city. Buildings, freeways, and shadows are metaphors for Antonios economic and social status.Tobar uses description of buildings to reinforce Antonios economic and social position in life. He informs the reader about the squat apartment buildings when the protagonist is on the way to a homeless camp, which have a significant contrast with the sky scrapers where Antonio observes later. Everyone can see the skyscrapers, but not many people know the existence of the short apartments. Tobar uses the invisibility of these apartments to reflect the inferiority of the protagonist in Los Angeles. Antonios existence is the least significant as an nonlegal immigrant. He is seen as a parasite that is not accepted by the city. The apartment owner, Hwang, even forces him to leave with a call to the police (9). On the other hand, the auth...